"When you are following misleading practices, the message is tainted," said Fiske. "Consumers 'wonder what else have they done that perhaps I shouldn't trust.'"

In USA TODAY, Fiske says that, "This incident brings light to a number of issues: disclosure, privacy and ethics among them. It's time for the technology companies to put aside their competitive drives to one-up each other and consider the consumer and the broader public, who deserve accurate and truthful information."

Speaking with Emma Barnett, a media reporter at the UK'sTelegraph, Fiske described the incident as “an embarrassment” to both Facebook and Burson.

“This reflects poorly upon the global public relations profession," she told The Telegraph. "On the whole, public relations practitioners are highly ethical professionals, and our profession’s success and growing value to the business community reflects that. But in this one instance, Burson made a significant ethical lapse.”

Once BM’s full pitch was revealed, big figures in the PR industry starting questioning the ethics of these tactics. “Oh no, say it ain’t so,” wrote Rosanna Fiske, CEO of the Public Relations Society of America, in a blog post responding to the scandal.

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